What should `ReadAsAsync` and `ReadAsStringAsync` be used for?

Question

What should HttpContentExtensions.ReadAsAsync and HttpContent.ReadAsStringAsync be used for?

They would seem to do similiar t

Answer 1

ReadAsStringAsync: This is a basic "get me the content as a string" method. It will work on anything you throw at it because it's just strings.

ReadAsAsync<T>: This is meant to be used to deserialise a JSON response into an object. The reason it fails is because the JSON in the return is not a valid JSON representation of a single string. For example, if you serialise a string:

var result = JsonConvert.SerializeObject("hello world");
Console.WriteLine(result);

Output is:

"hello world"

Note how it is surrounded by double quotes. If you try to deserialise any arbitrary JSON directly into a string that isn't in the format "....." it will throw the exception you see because it is expecting the JSON to start with a ".